Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Government officials in Oregon have been channeling Beavis and
Butthead (NSFW), perseverating
on a few isolated syllables in a communication. Too bad the
resemblance ends there. Unlike the adolescents, the officials'
infatuation with the word, "engineer" had real-world consequences for
the man who had the temerity to use it: The state fined the man $500.00 -- while ignoring everything of substance he said about a traffic hazard he was trying to help a local traffic authority
correct:

In September 2014, Mats Järlström, an
electronics engineer living in Beaverton, Oregon, sent an email to the
state's engineering board. The email claimed that yellow traffic
lights don't last long enough, which "puts the public at
risk."

"I would like to present these facts for your review
and comments," he wrote.

This email resulted not with a
meeting, but with a threat. The Oregon State Board of Examiners for
Engineering and Land Surveying responded with this dystopian
message:

"ORS 672.020(1) prohibits the practice of
engineering in Oregon without registration ... at a minimum, your use
of the title 'electronics engineer' and the statement 'I'm an
engineer' ... create violations."

This is not the firsttime
occupational licensing laws have infringed on freedom of speech, nor
will it be the last, but I am glad to learn that the Institute for Justice has taken up the
case:

"Mats has a clear First Amendment right to talk about
anything from taxes to traffic rights," Sam Gedge, an attorney for the
Institute for Justice, told me. "It's an instance of a licensing board
trying to suppress speech."

Interested readers can read a
brief press
release about the lawsuit at the web site of the Institute for
Justice.